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Preserved Apples for Winter Use
Pare and slice pippins. Put to each pound apples half a pound sugar, and to every eight pounds thus sweetened one quart water, a few cloves, the thin rind and juice of a lemon. Stew till clear, and eat with cream.--Mrs. B. J. B.
A straightforward sugar preserve in which the apple slices are cooked until translucent rather than broken down. The proportions are given by weight, so a scale makes the whole thing simple.
- The hinge: stew till clearThe apples are done when the slices turn translucent. The recipe gives no time; at a bare simmer expect it to take a good half hour or more. Boiling hard breaks the slices into sauce, which is not what this recipe is after.
- PippinsA general old term for an apple raised from seed. The Newtown (or Albemarle) Pippin was the best-known pippin in nineteenth-century Virginia and may well be what is meant — firm, tart and slow to collapse. Any firm cooking apple works: Granny Smith, Braeburn, Northern Spy, Winesap.
- The proportionsHalf a pound of sugar per pound of pared, sliced apple, then one quart of water per eight pounds of the sweetened fruit. For a manageable batch, 2 lb apples with 1 lb sugar — three pounds sweetened — and about 1½ cups water.
- A few clovesFour to six whole cloves for a 2 lb batch is plenty; they are assertive in a syrup this sweet. Tie them in cheesecloth with the lemon rind so both can be lifted out before serving.
- Lemon rind"The thin rind" means the coloured zest only, pared off in strips with no white pith, which would turn the syrup bitter over a long stew. The juice goes in with it and helps the syrup set.
- Keeping itDespite the title, no sealing or sterilising method is given — the sugar and acid do the preserving in a crock or covered jar in a cold larder. Treat it as a refrigerator preserve good for two or three weeks, and use a current tested water-bath canning procedure if you want shelf-stable jars.
- Yield and servingTwo pounds of apples gives roughly a pint and a half. Served cool with plain heavy cream poured over, or alongside pork or ham.
Sugar preserves like this one were the winter fruit supply of a household that had no reliable way to keep apples fresh past midwinter. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housewives — hence the "Mrs. B. J. B." — carries a long run of such recipes, and its apple entries reflect a state that took its varieties seriously. The Newtown Pippin, generally traced to Newtown on Long Island in the early eighteenth century, became one of Virginia's most important orchard apples and a significant export; Albemarle County growers sold it under the name Albemarle Pippin. Here the fruit is served stewed with plain cream, rather than in a pastry — dessert as a bowl of preserves rather than a construction.